Reflection for the 31st Sunday in Ordinary Time 2017

Getting
ready.

“The greatest among you must be your servant. Whoever exalts himself will be humbled; but whoever humbles himself will be exalted.”

The Church dedicates the month of November to remembrance and prayer. This month, we recall our faithful departed and offer up prayer for their benefit on their journey to heaven. But what about us?

Unfortunately, in this day and age, we have forgotten or have lost the notion of humility. In the past, no one thought that a person who had died simply floated off into heaven. It’s a nice notion, but far from the truth. The Church rightly teaches that such thinking is false and destructive. Yet now, everyone, regardless of their life or their faith goes to heaven. This is a human invention, and not of God.

In the early Church, such notions were declared a heresy. It is the heresy of universalism – no matter what you do or believe, you get to heaven. God has no requirements, Jesus taught nothing, we are good enough no matter what we do. No faith in Jesus – no matter. Heresy is a belief or opinion contrary to God’s revealed truth and universalism is a prime heresy, especially today.

Universalism teaches that we have no need to put our faith in Jesus or to be humble before God. We have no need of following Jesus’ teaching. When Jesus told us the He is the Way – He was either lying or kidding. Let’s be real – He is either the Way or what we do here is foolishness; Christianity is just a waste of energy.

We are here to call to mind and to integrate the fact that none of us is worthy of instant entrance into heaven. Our organizer, Bishop Hodur himself offered prayers and supplications for the departed. He spoke of “a life of torture, limitless pain, doubt, loneliness, and remorse” for those who have wasted the opportunities given, “who have trampled God’s gifts.” He noted that “Spiritual death is our own doing.” No universalism there.

This month we should especially focus on prayer to God for salvation from such a death – that we be sanctified and remain faithful.

We have something to rightly fear if we do not follow God’s way, if we let anything come between us and the praise, worship, and dedication rightly due God. If we fail to put faith in Jesus and set aside God’s Church and its teachings – we are in trouble. Time is short.

Jesus calls all to a spirit of humility. He calls us to recognize our unworthiness. He commands us to faith, servanthood, and humility. He destroys false notions, this one or that one will reach heaven because of what they are, not who they are. Let us recognize that it IS who we are that counts, our call to humility: Lord, I am not worthy… If we declare our faith and live those words, we will be exalted.

November 2017 Newsletter – Eternal Joy

He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.

The Church dedicates the month of November to the memory of the faithful departed. This is a wonderful tradition through which the prayers of the faithful living help to guide those that have died to eternal life into heaven. The words above, from Revelation 21:4, give us a glimpse of what is in store for those already journeying to heaven after death, and for us – the faithful living. Frankly, it will be beyond wonderful, exhilarating, and amazing. Pure, eternal, constant joy and glory for the faithful. Reflecting on all these things should cause us to consider our faithfulness more fully. The rewards for faithfulness are great, yet sometimes it can seem so hard to remain so, especially in the face of significant challenges. These challenges are like small ‘deaths’ in our lives. It can range from sickness to breakups, economic challenges to interpersonal conflicts. Sometimes, these small ‘deaths’ make us feel alone – and that is the enemy’s work. The enemy wishes to separate us, to accuse us (I’m not good enough; No one will understand; No one will like me now; I am unworthy of God; I can’t possibly go to church; It’s better if I stay away). A funny thing happens when we let faithfulness – born out of prayer and perseverance – overcome our fears, overcome the enemy, the accuser. When faithfulness prevails, when we step back into church, we find the start of healing and the comfort of fellowship. The sacraments bring us the special graces we need for strength and renewal. The key to faithfulness is to not allow small ‘deaths’ to separate us from God’s house and family. This month, as we commemorate and look to the example of the faithful departed, let us redouble our faithfulness so that we too will be prepared to enter that place where all ‘deaths’ end and where there is no more mourning, crying, or pain.

Join us in November as we celebrate our thanksgiving to God and continue our Fall activities. We so look forward to seeing you.

You may view and download a copy of our November 2017 Newsletter right here.

Bible Study for the 30th Week in Ordinary Time 2017

This week’s memory verse: I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. — Psalm 139:14

Pray the week: Lord Jesus, grant that I may truly know how much I am valued and live valuing others as You value me.

Reflection for the 30th Sunday in Ordinary Time 2017

I will see
and hear.

“Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” He said to him, “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.”

We have reflected on this gospel reading throughout Ordinary Time as it is read during Matins before Holy Mass. Who do we consider a neighbor? Really at the heart of the question, who matters? Jesus quickly answers the questioner: God matters and each and every person matters.

Doesn’t it make us happy and comforted to know that God thinks we all matter? So many try to draw circles around people, those inside, those outside. The good versus the bad, those like me and everyone else. Our lesson – once again, everyone matters.

Setting aside the view of others, and the labels they place, we also have to be careful about how we view ourselves. Sometimes, and likely all too frequently, we are our own worst enemy. We forget our inherent dignity – the goodness of our creation. The fact that God has his laser focus of care on us. We think ourselves less than worthy. Oh, I failed, I’m not good enough, I didn’t meet expectations, I don’t pray, read scripture, reflect on God enough, I sin too much, I fall over and over into habits that are harmful to myself and others. It’s easy to come up with a list of our own shortcomings because we forget God’s view.

God sees, hears and knows everything. Nothing is hidden from Him. Does He see where we fall short – sure. Yet, He doesn’t take his gaze from us. When we fully grasp and understand that His eyes are on us, His care is over us, His love and His Son’s sacrifice were for each of us, then we will allow Him to declare our value, and we will see that each and every person matters in the same way.

God does not operate like man. His thoughts and ways surpass that of man. They are way higher. Knowing how God is, we need to step up to see and hear as He does, to live valuing and counting ourselves and all people as those who matter.

We face challenges in this world, the naysayers, the put downers. We may even put ourselves down. As His people, we need to confront that head on with God’s truth, with the fact that He sees and hears and wants it different, “I will surely hear. I will hear; for I am compassionate.”

Indeed, our compassionate God sees and hears. No division or label (even our self-labeling) can last before Him. We all matter. Let us take up God’s great commandment, let us live it loving Him and everyone. To live like He does, to be men and women with God’s vision.

Bible Study for the 29th Week in Ordinary Time 2017

This week’s memory verse: Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. — 1 John 4:7

Pray the week: Holy Spirit, grant that I show forth the love and gifts You have provided in prayer, word, and power.

Reflection for the 29th Sunday in Ordinary Time 2017

How do you
say it.

We give thanks to God always for all of you, remembering you in our prayers, unceasingly calling to mind your work of faith and labor of love and endurance in hope of our Lord Jesus Christ, before our God and Father, knowing, brothers and sisters loved by God, how you were chosen. For our gospel did not come to you in word alone, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with much conviction.

I was looking at a list of songs about love – I must have been in one of my romantic moods. From Stevie Wonders’ I Just Called To Say I Love You to Whitney Houston’s I Will Always Love You, song writers and poets have crafted thousands of ways to say, ‘I love you.’ Hallmark makes money on helping people say, ‘I love you.’

Today, St. Paul in writing to the Church at Thessalonica, opens with a lovely introduction full of thankfulness for the people of the Church. He commends the Thessalonians prayerfulness, their work for the faith which is a labor of love, and their endurance in the face of persecutions. He calls the people of the Thessalonian Church the ‘loved of God.’ He remembers how the gospel, God’s word, came to them. It wasn’t merely by hearing, but in a powerful outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

When did we ‘receive the word?’ When was the Holy spirit poured out on us? This question has lots of opportunities for good storytelling: I remember that day at Kurs Youth Camp, at our Biennial Youth Convocation, at a Mission and Evangelism conference, at Synod, on a quiet hillside, at a time of crisis, during an unexpected encounter, or one Sunday in church. In that moment, we joined the loved of God.

In joining the loved of God, we accept the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. We recognize that He clothes us as He clothed the Thessalonians. We too are clothed with His gifts. He looks to us to be the new prayerful, the new workers for the faith, new laborers of love, the strong and enduring for the sake of the kingdom.

We often think that the Epistles of the first century marked something extraordinary – and we would be right in thinking that. We would however be wrong in thinking that the people, the loved of God of the first century were the last of the line. Indeed, they were the first.

Now we stand in their place, and hopefully we are not just standing. We, from Schenectady, Albany, Troy, Saratoga like the Thessalonians have been chosen to live out the gifts of the Spirit. Our receiving of the word is made evident by our work of faith and labor of love. The word in us is shown in the way we say, ‘I love you’ and help others to do so. We may do it in music, we may do it in poetry, but most of all we must do it in prayer, word, and power.

Bible Study for the 28th Week in Ordinary Time 2017

This week’s memory verse: Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience — Colossians 3:12

Pray the week: Lord Jesus, grant that I may dress myself in the garments of salvation, prepared and ready for your Kingdom banquet.

Reflection for the 28th Sunday in Ordinary Time 2017

Let’s get
dressed.

But when the king came in to meet the guests, he saw a man there not dressed in a wedding garment. The king said to him, ‘My friend, how is it that you came in here without a wedding garment?’

John Wooden was a basketball player and later head basketball coach at the University of California at Los Angeles. He won ten national championships His teams won a record 88 consecutive games. He had his choice of players. The players UCLA recruited were the best of the best, having been part of winning successful teams. When these star players showed up for the first day of practice, Coach Wooden sat them down and very patiently taught them how to put on their socks and shoes. He got down to basics, telling them that if they get their socks on wrong, with a crease or fold in the wrong place, it would harm the team. He taught them to double tie their shoes so that they could play on, not leaving their team without their presence.

As Christians, we need to get down to basics, and Jesus reminds us of that today. We have to take time to remind ourselves of basic Christian responsibilities, to prepare ourselves so we show up well presented at the King’s feast. Let’s cover a few of the ways we should prepare ourselves.

In the early Church, some believers thought that one of the gifts of the Spirit, the ability to speak in tongues, was particularly special. They often flaunted that ability and saw it as a point of pride. St. Paul was quick to correct them. He criticized them because their everyday words were ruining the unity that Christians ought to have. He said: “Some from Chloe’s household have informed me that there are quarrels among you. I hear that when you come together as a church, there are divisions among you. Your meetings do more harm than good.” It came down to this – they couldn’t control their own tongues. They used the words they knew from birth to gossip, slander, and to create disunity. What did the Spirit gift of speaking in tongues matter if they could not control their own tongue? No Spirit gift is more important than the Christian love and the respect they were to show for each other. We all are tempted especially when there are stresses, and we try to figure it all out. We continue to face the challenges the early Church faced. Getting ready, preparing for the King’s feast, includes our dressing our thoughts and words in love.

Several years ago, someone close to me contracted cancer. He ended up losing one of his lungs. It reminds me of the end of 2011, we were on our last lung in this parish. We had little to nothing to sustain this parish but for a few months to a year. I had asked one thing only – that we make a great act of faith and put our trust and belief in God, that He would provide. We did, and we did it together. It happened, God moved many hearts and caused miracles to happen. We did no extra fundraisers. Yet our coffers were filled and we invested in many things – spending more than we had in years we ended up with more in the jar. The oil did not run out, the jar of flour was filled. The man who ended up losing a lung met that challenge with perseverance, joy, and faith. So too we who are preparing for the King’s feast. We are called to act with faith above all else, to wear and show trust in God and His provision. A grain of faith dresses us for the King’s sumptuous feast.

Like the Acts Church, we are all learning to dress. We are all in the process of getting ready so that we may be welcomed at the King’s feast. Those members of the Acts Church did not always agree. Like those at the feast, they were rich and poor, people of every background and color, yet they overcame by sacrifice, in communal worship, fellowship, joy even in challenges. Setting aside all we arrive ready for the King.

Bible Study for the 27th Week in Ordinary Time 2017

This week’s memory verse: For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named — Ephesians 3:14-15

Pray the week: Lord Jesus, grant that I may fully participate and find all joy in Your family.

Reflection for the Solemnity of the Christian Family 2017

It is about
understanding.

And when they saw him they were astonished; and his mother said to him, “Son, why have you treated us so? Behold, your father and I have been looking for you anxiously.” And he said to them, “How is it that you sought me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” And they did not understand the saying which he spoke to them. 

Gaining understanding, seeing what God is doing and what our relationship is toward Him are the things Jesus fought for His entire life. He wanted us to see family as more than a functional organization that does stuff together, but as the model of the kingdom. Family is designed to be a peek into what the eternal kingdom will look like.

Jesus and his parents had been at the festival for at least seven days. They spent their time growing in relationship to their community (the model of church), to each other (the domestic church) and most of all, toward God (their eternal Father source of family). They were living out church.

We know how it is when we get caught up in something great. We don’t want to leave. So it was for Jesus. In the Temple precincts, Jesus had it all. He has the fullness of family all in one place. He didn’t want to leave. He was having an excellent time. He wants us to feel and live this way too – right now.

Jesus wants to share the fullness of family relationship with us. He wants us to gain insight, to understand and see beyond the ordinary and look to the extraordinary greatness of life that is the Christian family – the family centered on and living in Him. He wants us to revel in the family of God and to never want to leave.

God is all about family. He designed us and the world around us to mirror family life in heaven. “Let us make man in our image.” He wants us to be moved to such an extent that we want family. He wants us to stay, not just with Him, but with each other in family. He ministered to and built family to provide a life example – this is how it is supposed to be.

Jesus taught His disciples to refer to His Father as their Father. He asked the crowds – who is my mother, brothers, and sisters? It is those who understand and live in family relationship with Him and His Father. He wants us to remain, to stay in family love.

God’s family is built upon all the things Jesus taught – the example He gave us – one of dedication, worship, sacrifice, and love. God wants us to understand His great desire – that we are family and are to live that way.

As we once again renew and take up life as the kingdom family, let us remember the example of the Acts Church – people living as one – living, sacrificing, praying, and worshiping – really getting it, never wanting to leave.